My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. — Reading Companion

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In Category - Biographies

Authors: Thompson, George, 1823- Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2009 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Thompson, George, 1823- Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 40,023

Reading time 175 min

Text sections 4

My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. — Reading Companion can be approached with a clearer sense of reading commitment from its source measurements: 40,023 words, 2 hr 55 min estimated reading time, and 4 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 20.6 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #28635

George Thompson's 1854 autobiography blends self-promotion with sensational fiction, offering a first-person account of a struggling author's life that oscillates between theatrical melodrama and candid self-deprecation.

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Title & short description10 pts
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Text length15 pts
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File: pg28635

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Officers were sent for, the murderer and his victim were removed, and comparative quiet prevailed. I was seated in an obscure corner of the bar-room, wondering how I should get through the night, when I was unceremoniously accosted by a lad of about my own age. He was a rakish looking youth, quite handsome withal, dressed in the height of fashion, and was smoking a cigar with great vigor and apparent relish. It will be seen hereafter that I have reason to remember this individual to the very last day of my life. Would to heaven that I had never met him!

This youth slapped me familiarly on the shoulder, and said--

"Hallo, bub! why, you're wet as a drowned rat! Come and take a brandy cocktail--it will warm you up!"

I had never drank a drop of liquor in my life, and I hadn't the faintest idea of what a brandy cocktail was, and so I told my new friend, who laughed immoderately as he exclaimed--

"How jolly green you are, to be sure; why, you're a regular _greenhorn_, and I'm going to call you by that name hereafter. Have you got any tin?"

I knew that he meant money, and so I told him that I had but a sixpence in the world.

"Bah!" cried my friend, as he drew his cigar from his mouth and salivated in the most fashionable manner, "who are you, what are you and what are you doing here? Come, tell me all about yourself, and it may perhaps be in my power to do you a service."

His frank, off-hand manner won my confidence. I told him my whole story, without any reserve; and he laughed uproariously when I told him how I had pitched my tyrannical uncle down stairs.

"It served the old chap right," said he approvingly--"you are a fellow of some spirit, and I like you. Come take a drink, and we can afterwards talk over what is best to be done."

I objected to drink, because I had formed a strong prejudice against ardent spirits, having often been a witness of its deplorable effects in depriving men--and women, too--of their reason, and reducing them to the condition of brute beasts. So, in declining my friend's invitation, I told him my reasons for so doing, whereupon he laughed louder than ever, as he remarked--

"Why, _Greenhorn_, you'd make an excellent temperance lecturer. But perhaps you think I haven't got any money to pay the rum. Look here--what do you think of _that_?"

He displayed a large roll of bank bills, and flourished them triumphantly. I had never before seen so much money, except in the broker's windows; and my friend was immediately established in my mind as a _millionaire_, whose wealth was inexhaustible. I suddenly conceived for him the most profound respect, and would not have offended him for the world. How could I persist in refusing to drink with a young gentleman of such wealth, and (as a necessary consequence) such distinction? Besides, I suddenly felt quite a curiosity to drink some liquor, just to see how it tasted. After all, it was only very low people who got drunk and wallowed in the mire. _Gentlemen_ (I thought) never get drunk, and they always seem so happy and joyous after they have been drinking! How they shake hands, and swear eternal friendship, and seem generously willing to lend or give away all they have in the world! So thought I, as my mind was made up to accept the invitation of my friend. It is singular that I had forgotten all about the murder which had just taken place in that bar-room, and which had been directly produced by intemperance.

"The fact is, my dear _Greenhorn_," said my friend, impressively, as he flourished his hand after the manner of some aged, experienced and eloquent orator, "the fact is, the _use_ of liquor, and its _abuse_, are two very different things. A man (here he drew himself up) can drink like a gentleman, or he can swill like a loafer, or a beast. Now _I_ prefer the gentlemanly portion of the argument, and therefore we'll go up and take a gentlemanly drink. I shall be happy, young man, to initiate you into the divine joys and mysteries of Bacchus--ahem!"

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George Thompson opens his 1854 autobiography with a bold comparison to Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens, framing his life story as both a fashionable literary exercise and a defiant act of self-assertion. The introductory poem sets a tone of restless truth-seeking, declaring that 'Truth's domain' offers wonders more 'wild and true' than fiction. Yet the narrative that follows immediately undercuts this claim, as Thompson's prose veers between high-flown melodrama and wry, colloquial asides. The excerpt featuring Mrs. Raymond's plight—complete with a villainous landlady, a threatened dagger, and a vow of vengeance—reads like a sensation novel, only to be punctured by Thompson's parenthetical admission that his youthful rhetoric was 'theatrical and romantic,' and that he would now simply advise her to 'put on the tea-kettle.' This self-aware oscillation between genres is the book's most distinctive feature.

Self-Portrait of an Author as a Young Man

Thompson introduces himself as a writer of 'no talent at all' compared to his famous contemporaries, yet he simultaneously boasts of his 'total independence' from public opinion. This paradoxical self-presentation recurs throughout the excerpts. He claims to be 'unobtrusive, unambitious, retiring,' while writing an autobiography that explicitly aims to 'blow his own trumpet.' The tension is not resolved but performed: Thompson wants credit for candor about his faults, yet he also insists that his lack of 'cheek' has held him back. The reader is left to decide whether this is genuine humility, ironic posturing, or a calculated bid for sympathy. The catalog subject 'Authors, American – 19th century – Biography' suggests a straightforward life story, but Thompson's narrative voice is anything but straightforward.

Melodrama and Its Discontents

The extended scene with Mrs. Raymond showcases Thompson's reliance on sensational plot devices: a virtuous woman threatened with prostitution, a hidden dagger, a villain named Livingston, and a vow of bloody revenge. The language is deliberately overwrought—'her bosom heaved like the waves of a stormy sea'—and the situation is a staple of the penny-dreadful fiction Thompson presumably wrote for a living. Yet the author undercuts the drama with a parenthetical remark that contrasts his nineteen-year-old self with his older, more pragmatic narrator. This double-voiced technique invites the reader to enjoy the melodrama while also recognizing its artificiality. The excerpt does not reveal whether Mrs. Raymond's story is true or invented, but Thompson's willingness to blur the line between autobiography and fiction is itself a central subject of the book.

Poverty, Labor, and the Writer's Lot

Thompson's account of his early struggles is grounded in concrete details: he 'lived frugally, almost on bread and water,' and could not earn enough to pay rent despite 'utmost industry.' The Mrs. Raymond episode similarly emphasizes economic vulnerability—she has 'not tasted food since the day before yesterday' and faces eviction. These passages align with the catalog subject of Thompson's biography as a record of an author's life, but they also reveal the precariousness of the literary marketplace in mid-nineteenth-century America. Thompson presents himself as a witness to hardship, yet his narrative frame—the autobiography of a writer who has survived to tell the tale—implies a measure of success. The excerpts do not clarify how Thompson eventually escaped poverty, but they establish that his self-portrait is inseparable from the material conditions of his trade.

Readers approaching My Life should be prepared for a work that resists easy classification. Thompson's autobiography is neither a reliable memoir nor a pure fiction, but a hybrid that uses the conventions of both genres to construct a public persona. The catalog subjects—'Authors, American – 19th century – Biography'—only partially capture what the text actually does. Pay attention to the shifts in tone, the parenthetical asides, and the way Thompson frames his own story as both exemplary and exceptional. The book rewards those who read with an eye for its strategic inconsistencies.

There’s something touching about George Thompson, who wrote his own noisy, unreliable life story and still couldn’t quite hide the loneliness underneath. I found myself lately thinking of Elizabeth, endlessly negotiating a marriage she never truly wanted. Both knew the strange fatigue of performing desire for public consumption. The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth A history of the various negotiations for her marriage — A Reader’s Guide captures that quiet, weary dance beautifully.